By Tom Pryor

World Music Legends Burning Spear
After Bob Marley, Burning Spear has done more than anyone to keep both authentic roots reggae and Marcus Garvey’s teachings alive in the 21st century. At 56, Winston Rodney shows no signs of slowing down.
By Tom Pryor

World Music Legends
Astor Piazzolla
Few artists are as intimately associated with Argentine tango as Astor Piazzolla. He did more than anyone to keep the tango alive and evolving as an artform in the later half of the twentieth century.
By Tom Pryor

World Music Legends Fela KutiThe late, great Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti was one of the most dynamic, original and uncompromising musicians to emerge from the great post-colonial African pop explosion in the 1960s and ’70s.
By Tom Pryor

Reggae Legends Capleton
Capleton had an early gift for (sometimes lewd) wordplay. Then Capleton got religion, Rastafarianism to be specific, and the tone and tenor of his music began to change.
By Tom Pryor

Reggae Legends King Tubby
King Tubby was the studio genius and sound innovator who invented dub reggae. He was responsible for some of the genre’s greatest recordings and changed the way people listened to music.
By Tom Pryor

African Legends
Brenda Fassie
Dubbed “The Madonna of the Townships” by Time Magazine, South African singer Brenda Fassie was one of the most beloved, controversial and ultimately tragic figures of contemporary South Africa.
By Tom Pryor

African Legends Bi KidudeZanzibar’s legendary Bi Kidude is one of a kind: a 90-something performer, storyteller and musical repository who’s also a living link back to the roots of contemporary Swahili pop music and the great taarab singer Siti Binti Saad.
By Tom Pryor

African Legends Dolly RathebeDolly Rathebe was one of the most influential singers in South Africa’s booming jazz scene of the ’40s and ’50s, singing in the hip clubs of Joburg’s mixed Sophiatown neighborhood.
By Tom Pryor

African Legends Culture Musical ClubEast Africa’s distinctive taarab music is unique to the Swahili coast. But the music and culture’s true homeland is the island of Zanzibar, and taraab’s best-known practitioners are the elegant and accomplished members of the great Culture Musical Club.
By Tom Pryor

African Legends Ismael LôIsmael Lô is one of Senegal’s great voices, a powerful and versatile performer who came of age alongside Youssou N’Dour and others during the m'balax explosion of the late ’70s and early ’80s.
By Tom Pryor

African Legends MabuluThe Mozambican band Mabulu unites up-and-coming young rappers and singers with master musicians from the golden age of marrabenta, Mozambique’s classic pop sound of the ’60s and ’70s.
By Tom Pryor

African Legends Thione SeckThione Ballago Seck descends from a famous line of griots, the traditional praise singers of the Wolof people of Senegal. Simply put, he has one of the most beautiful voices in all of Africa.
By Tom Pryor